Former Ghanaian President, John Mahama has blamed the Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta for the country’s economic woes.
According to him, the President’s seeming inability to remove Mr. Ofori-Atta from office is making the situation worse.
“To be clear, we’re in this mess because of an untouchable Finance Minister relying on his Databank workers and neglecting the advice of seasoned experts at the Finance Ministry. He has been left to run this economy into the ground”.
“We’re in this mess because of the so called solid Economic Management Team, who over the last several years has been unable to call the President’s cousin (Ofori-Atta) to order when he embarked on a reckless borrowing spree”.
Speaking at a lecture on the economy on Thursday night, he stressed that the incompetence of the sector minister and the entire entire Akufo-Addo regime accounts for the depreciation of the Cedi and the other economic challenges plaguing the country.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we in the NDC will not have dared been reckless or would we have been allowed to be irresponsible in the handling of the public purse and the nation’s resources as the NPP has done.
We would not have been reckless and even society would not have allowed us to do some of the things that they have done. We’ve had our set of challenges in government. But nothing we did, or the outcome thereof has come anyway near close to the disaster unfolding before our eyes today”, he said.
The theme for the lecture was “Building The Ghana We Want”.
Touching on the hardship facing Ghanaians, he assured that the next NDC government will rescue Ghana from its current state through prudent economic reforms and policies.
He also urged the current regime to consider measures such as a cut in the number of government appointees as a means of salvaging the economy.
Meanwhile, President Nana Akufo-Addo will on Sunday, October 30, also address the nation on the economic challenges facing the country and its people.
The President made this known in a Facebook post on Thursday.
The address is scheduled for 8:00pm, and will be telecast on GTV and on major television networks across the country, the post said.
The address by the President comes in the wake of recent public agitations about the ailing state of the economy.
“At the moment, Ghana’s economy is reeling under pressure; a situation which has led to an increase in the cost of living as well as what some have described as a ‘galloping inflation’”.
The country’s local currency is also battling a fluctuation against the US dollar and other major trading currencies across the globe.
Coupled with graduate unemployment and the general hardship in the system, many Ghanaians have subsequently bemoaned the situation and called on government to speedily resolve the crisis.
For some, the President’s upcoming address, therefore, comes as a welcome relief amidst the prevailing challenges.
Meanwhile, government says it is working to put the economy on a better footing.
